March 19, 2013

Passports Issued

There is something oddly comforting about having the ability to legally leave the country whenever we want. The passport applying process was pretty easy. I had to have my birth certificate reissued because it didn't list my parent's names on it. I know, so odd. When I got it reissued, I congratulated my parents on the birth of their daughter, some 39 years later.

Before you attempt to get your passport, I highly, highly recommend making sure you have the appropriate - and correct - documents before you proceed. It will save you so much time and aggravation. We applied for our passports at our local county office, which happened to be located in a mall. No appointment was necessary, you just show up.

They were very thorough, checking over our applications to make sure everything was filled out correctly. For a $10 family fee, they will take the passport photos for you, ensuring it will be accepted by the passport issuing police. I had heard quite a few stories of people's applications being rejected due to the photo so we didn't want to take a chance. Since there were four of us applying for passports for the first time, the entire process took about an hour.

We applied for our passports on February 23rd ... and they arrived yesterday via priority mail. Super fast!! We were originally told that our passports would arrive first, followed by our birth certificates arriving via a separate mailing (which I thought was odd at the time, but the woman assured us it's just how it's done.) But this was not the case. Each passport arrived in its own priority mail envelope with our birth certificates included in the envelope.

If you don't have a passport, I recommend getting one just to have it. With the way things are going in this world, you just never know when you might need it.